Patrick Gideon Wolff learned chess from his father at the age of five. In 1984, at the age of 16, he won the U.S. Junior Championship. At the age of 19, he earned the GM title. He won the US Championship two times, in 1992 http://graeme.50webs.com/chesschamp... and 1995 http://graeme.50webs.com/chesschamp.... One of Patrick's proudest moments was when he participated in a simultaneous exhibition in 1988 and, with the black pieces, forced world champion Garry Kasparov to resign in a mere 25 moves.

He has written many articles and books, made numerous contributions to chess video projects, and for many years maintained a website dedicated to chess learning at http://www.wolffchess.com/.

After several years as a professional chess player, Wolff went to work in the finance industry. From 2005 to 2010 he employed by Peter Thiel as managing director of Thiel's Clarium Capital hedge fund, and from 2010 to 2015 ran his own fund, Grandmaster Capital 1.

King Death: < drkodos: ^ This is a ridiculously spartan database in some areas ... make generalizations at your own peril ....>

And one of those areas is any player from the pre computer period that isn't at the very highest level. If I remember right Wolff used to play a lot of open Swisses so there'll be a lot of games missing from those.

Isolani: << drkodos: ^ This is a ridiculously spartan database in some areas ... make generalizations at your own peril ....>
And one of those areas is any player from the pre computer period that isn't at the very highest level. If I remember right Wolff used to play a lot of open Swisses so there'll be a lot of games missing from those.>

I was already well aware that the database does not encompass every played game during his lifetime, but thanks for pointing that out anyway. Nevertheless there may be enough games included to conduct a non-scientific litmus test.

I just made an off-hand observation that this GM who almost exclusively played 1.e4, not to mention was also partial to main Sicilian lines as white as well, seemingly had difficulty playing against a rather common variation as that color.

eternaloptimist: I had the privilege of meeting & talking to Patrick @ a chess tournament in new orleans back in '92 when he was the reigning US chess champion. (He also won it in '95). Unfortunately he's not playing in tournaments now but he did come back briefly & play in the US chess league in '08. Happy birthday Patrick!

FSR: <perfidious> Unfortunately (for Fischer's chess results at least), Buenos Aires 1960 was the tournament where he got laid. He got f***ed in more ways than one:

<Fischer struggled in the later Buenos Aires tournament, finishing with 8½/19 (won by Viktor Korchnoi and Samuel Reshevsky on 13/19). This was the only real failure of Fischer's competitive career. According to Larry Evans, Fischer's first sexual experience was with a girl to whom Evans introduced him during the tournament. Pal Benko says that Fischer did horribly in the tournament "because he got caught up in women and sex. Afterwards, Fischer said he'd never mix women and chess together, and kept the promise.">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_...

Benko, OTOH, claimed that he got crushed in Fischer vs Benko, 1963 because he <didn't> get any action the previous night:

<Everyone thinks that this Rf6 game against me was something special, but I don't know what's so great about it. I was exhausted for this game. I was up all night necking in a car with a young lady...kissing and kissing. But it didn't go beyond that, so the combination of no sleep and frustration led to me losing badly to Bobby.>

But the idea is right, just leave his bio open-ended (people can always go to wiki to see what he's doing post-chess)

* * * * *

From the NYTimes article, as to why he decided not to become a full-time professional (even if qualified):

<Unlike Wilder, Wolff spent several years as a professional player. He had enrolled at Yale, but after being awarded a Samford Fellowship in 1989  which is usually given to one top young player each year and comes with a $32,000 annual stipend for two years  he took time off to purse chess full time.

I never expected to be a professional indefinitely, he said. But it was fantastic fun.

A turning point came in 1992, when he was hired to help Viswanathan Anand, the current world champion, to prepare for a match. The experience tipped him over the edge, he said.>

Although he did compete in Biel 1993. Soon afterwards he returned to college, graduating from Havard in 1996.

* * * * *

<RE: shhh....> If you watch the video you'll see that Rachels might not even be fully aware of who's talking. He intently staring at the board and doesn't even look up. Seemed just instinctive to me.

Howard: So, what is Wolff doing nowadays? The new magazine, American Chess Magazine, ran an interview with him recently, but I don't think it stated what he's doing now that his hedge fund is shut down.

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